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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388159">A new dream box</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/smol_fangirl/pseuds/smol_fangirl'>smol_fangirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, F/M, JATP Appreciation Week 2020, Luke finds out about Perfect Harmony, Luke is a dork but we knew that, Luke x dream box, yes it's the second fic I wrote where that happens I know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Characters:</b></td><td>Alex (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina, Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke finds out about Perfect Harmony and Julie threatens to get a new dream box.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A new dream box</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was the first prompt I finished for JATP Appreciation Week, back when I thought I'd write cute little 1k OS for each prompt. Because that worked out well for me...<br/>(Let's pretend it did.)<br/>Today's prompt: favorite ship. Am I writing about Juke or Luke x dream box? Guess you'll never know...<br/>Enjoy! ♥</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After three hours, he can’t handle it anymore. His patience runs out like water slowly disappearing in the drain after a long bath, and now he’s sitting in the cold, arms clutched around his knees. He’s rocking back and forth on the couch, to keep him warm, to keep him busy. He tries to lure his thoughts onto another path. Fails, again and again.</p><p>Why didn’t she come back after dinner?</p><p>“Dude, you’re pouting again,” Alex notes, bumping against his shoulder.</p><p>Luke freezes. “What do you mean? I’m not.”</p><p>“Oh, you are <em>totally</em> pouting,” Reggie teases, grinning at him from the armchair before he puts on his best puppy eyes impression. It looks a bit cute and a lot more disturbing, somehow. “Just go talk to her or something. Woo her with your dreamy eyes.”</p><p>Sighing, Luke throws his head into his neck and searches for some enlightenment in the chairs on the ceiling. He wants to go talk to her, of course. If the afterlife was perfect, he’d never have to wait half a day for her to come home from school, or hear her excuse herself after rehearsal so she can take care of her homework.</p><p>But boundaries.</p><p>“Luke,” Alex snaps him out of it, the eyeroll dripping into his tone. “Just go to her. She won’t kill you.”</p><p>“And she <em>can’t</em> kill you!” his other best friend chimes in.</p><p>Luke snorts. “Yeah, I’m not sure that would stop her from trying.”</p><p>“If you don’t go right now, I’ll be the one to try.”</p><p>A groan slipping over his lips, Luke shoots one last annoyed glare at Alex, then poofs out.</p>
<hr/><p>She’s singing.</p><p>At first, he feels a sting of betrayal in the left side of his chest. Why is she singing here, in her room, when she could bless him with her voice in the studio instead? How often does he miss out on this? Does she sing under the shower, too? On her way home? In the kitchen when she makes herself a PBJ sandwich?</p><p>He shakes that thought away right as the lyrics catch his attention.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Life can be so mean</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But when he goes, I know he doesn’t leave </em>
</p><p> </p><p>His mouth drops open.</p><p>It’s not a song he ever heard before. Not back when he was alive, not when she showed him her favorite CDs and these playlists on her phone and he learned them all by heart. Was it part of a poem from her dream box? No, he’d remember that. Those songs weren’t about any boy. (About Nick. The memory makes him smile.)</p><p>Luke sinks on the floor, eyes fluttering shut. As he rests his head on the cool wood of her door, her voice becomes a lullaby, gently shooing away the restlessness that usually haunts him.</p><p>Before he knows it, the lyrics are engraved in the back of his mind.</p><p>Before he can stop himself, he joins her the next time she starts over.</p>
<hr/><p>Her pen freezes mid-doodle, and her voice along with it.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Her heart pounds loudly against her ribcage. Every breath feels like a task on her to-do list. Was that really his voice or is she daydreaming again? But she didn’t feel so nauseous during dance class, like her stomach was about to flip itself inside out, and she saw him too, back then.</p><p>A knock on her door.</p><p>Maybe this is not a daydream. <em>Heaven help me</em>.</p><p>“Come in,” she croaks.</p><p>Luke phases through the door. She feels like she’ll find out if she has unfinished business any second now. The new sneaker she’s been drawing on drops onto the mattress.</p><p>“I didn’t know you wrote a new song,” he beams at her like he’s her own little sun, and like that, the next breath comes easy.</p><p>Before her previous train of thoughts runs her over again, she scooches over on her bed. When he sits down next to her, his knee bumps against her thigh.</p><p>Her eyes linger on the Sharpie in her hand. She clears her throat. “Were you listening or did you snoop around my dream box again?”</p><p>“Listening,” he admits, nose crunched. “Sorry.” Biting his lip, he steals a glimpse at her only to immediately look down on the mattress when their eyes meet. “Although I actually kinda hope you hid some new treasures in that box.”</p><p>A gentle nudge. The reassuring firmness of his arm. The corner of her mouth, barely twitching. “I’ll need a new dream box, huh?”</p><p>“You shouldn’t have said that,” he chuckles. “Now I’ll just go and look for the other one.”</p><p>Tilting her head, Julie fights a smile, but it’s hard to muster a frown when he’s that close and this cute. “You do know you’re not supposed to cross my boundaries?”</p><p>His eyes widen. The curve of his lips turns into a worried line. He rubs his neck. Swallows. “Oh my god, I’m <em>so</em> sorry, Julie, I didn’t mean to, it’s… look, I was just…” Grimacing, he takes a deep breath. When he looks at her again, she wonders how his eyes seem so much bigger now. “You’re a great writer, Julie, and I was curious to see what you got. But I’ll stop, I promise.”</p><p>Slowly, she rests her hand on his, her thumb caressing the air that makes up his skin. “Thanks, Luke.”</p><p>The way his smile comes back, along with these endlessly adorable and deeply damned puppy eyes, might very nearly kill her.</p><p>Licking his lips, he blinks at her. “So, a new song?”</p><p>“Oh, that…” she laughs, but it runs dry before it fully leaves her throat. “That’s nothing.”</p><p>“Doesn’t sound like nothing to me. Come on, Jules.” He rests his head on her shoulder, glancing up. Under the lamp on her bedside table, the hazel color of his eyes turns into a dark grey.</p><p>She shoves him away. “It’s nothing, okay?”</p><p>“Julieee,” he sings. Bumps her knee. Pouts.</p><p>Groaning, she hides her face in her hands.</p><p>“<em>Please</em>. Julie. Jules. Angel. What’s it about?”</p><p>“Angel? Really?”</p><p>Glimpsing through her fingers, she sees him shrug. “You sing like one.”</p><p>Did someone set her cheeks on fire? “Shut up,” she mumbles.</p><p>He doesn’t, of course.</p><p>“I’m just curious about your new song, okay? Why are you trying to hide it from me? You never did before.” The pout leaks into his voice now and he looks too much like a puppy and she has no idea how to cope with him and her feelings and <em>argh</em>.</p><p>“Because it’s about us, okay? Are you happy now?”</p><p>Time freezes.</p><p>Right in front of her, he does too.</p><p>She shouldn’t have said that. Out of all the things she shouldn’t do, telling him about the song had been right at the top of that list. (Right below that? Finding out what a ghost kiss tastes like. But if her confession broke him now, she wouldn’t ever find out.) The conversation with Flynn echoes through her mind, the promises she lured out of her.</p><p>But his goddamn puppy eyes.</p><p>The second a frown hushes over Julie’s face, Luke blinks.</p><p>He blinks, and suddenly the frozen puppy look turns into the joy of a schoolkid on Christmas morning as he’s trying to hide his grin when it already reaches his ears. “That… that was about me?” he stammers, his hand instinctively wrapping around hers.</p><p>As she squeezes back, his smile deepens, and he clicks his tongue. “Jules, you could’ve just said you liked me.” </p>
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